


Pistol and the Tank

by WastelandWhisper



Series: Wasteland Wonderland [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Multi, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WastelandWhisper/pseuds/WastelandWhisper
Summary: The wasteland is harsh, to humans and non-humans alike.  Andrew went to bed one morning thinking he was human, only to get a rude awakening the next day after a bizarre encounter with a talking deathclaw that would turn his life around.  Now they're on the run with a motly crew comprised of an ex-raider, a sentient Giddyup Buttercup, and a supermutant nurse.  Despite their...unique genetic makeup...they're all desperately seeking the same thing: a safe place to call home.  In order to do that they might have to face the Institute head on, and the slight chance at victory might be possible if they are able to unite The Commonwealth.Gonna need some Jet after that!This is the first fic I've posted.  Comment with whatever you like, just be respectful :)  I've researched the lore to an extent, but the cannon might be a little screwy in some areas, it's hard to keep track of such an expansive universe, so bear with me. I have a lot of chapters already written, so I'm going to try to update at least once a week.
Series: Wasteland Wonderland [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690717
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	1. Pistol

Andrew leaned against a dead tree trunk heaving.   
No, not Andrew. His name wasn’t Andrew. Andrew had been taken away by the institute. Andrew had been replaced, by him. Up until that morning he had been Andrew, a nice young man that lived with his parents on a quiet settlement just outside of Sanctuary Hills. Now all of a sudden he was just a randomly numbered Synth, on the run from a courser, leaning against a dead tree near the edge of the Commonwealth panting with his man-made lungs.   
His eyes scanned the area. This section of the Commonwealth was mostly deserted; the land was too rocky for farming and there were sightings of radscorpions and deathclaws roaming the area. Even the raiders weren’t stupid enough to venture out there. There were rumors that there was one of those pre-war vaults out here…Vault 451 he thought he heard a passerby say. The traders roaming through the area liked to speculate what was in there when they sat around the campfire. Pre-war treasures, caps, chems, pristine snack cakes…but nobody was brave enough to venture near it. Nobody was even sure if it was actually there, and if it were it was probably infested with radroaches, or worse.   
Synth-Andrew (god he didn’t even have a name anymore did he?) didn’t have a choice to weigh his options. An institute courser was breathing down his synthetic neck and he had to find a place to lay low fast. He looked at his pipe-pistol and sighed. It was his only weapon, he didn’t have a chance to grab anything else when he ran. It was barely good enough to kill a young mole rat, and there was only six bullets left, but it had to do. Maybe he’d get lucky and find a good shotgun on one of the corpses of the poor curious bastards that littered the abandoned area. He waited until he could catch his breath, listening for any movement. Dead silent. He swallowed dryly and made his way east trying to make as little noise as possible. His only shot was this vault that might or might not exist that might or might not be full of deadly creatures.   
But what else did he have? He was lucky to be alive.   
He shoved the swarming thoughts of what it meant to be human to the back of his mind and tried to be acutely aware of his surroundings. He gave a wide berth to a rad scorpion he spotted in the distance. He tread carefully around small piles of dirt on the ground that looked a lot like mole hills. All this while keeping an eye out for a serious looking man in a black coat. As long as he didn’t have to shoot anything, he should be fine. He slowly became more confidant. He slipped around the wildlife quietly like a ghost, making his way across the arid landscape quickly. I can do this, he thought, I can make it. He had no idea what he was going to do after he made it to the vault, but if he didn’t lose the courser it wouldn’t matter anyway. He’d have to cross that bridge if he was lucky enough to get to it.   
Snap.  
He froze, his heart slamming in his chest. Wonder what it’s made of? The thought slipped through his mind and he immediately forgot it. There was a soft sound of movement behind him. To soft to be a ferocious animal, but soft enough to be a ferocious synth. He clutched his pistol, sweaty in his hand. He was determined to make a stand. He made it this far, he wasn’t going to give up now, not when he was so close to freedom.   
Didn’t I have freedom before?   
He tried not to think of the past 24 hours. The whispering between his ‘parents’ in the first rays of light in the morning. The gaping holes in his memories the days past. The horrible nightmares of being awake but immobile in a blinding white room with…something plugged into the back of his head. He went to bed thinking everything was normal and woke up to a new terrifying world, and he didn’t have a damn second to sit down and process it all.  
Rustle.  
It was getting closer. His muscles tensed, he grasped the pistol with two hands and before giving the Institute bastard a second to get the jump on him he spun around and fired three shots.   
BAMBAMBAM!  
The shots echoed off the large rocks for a moment then all was silent. The synth stared, gaping, at what made the noise.   
It wasn’t the courser.   
It was a fucking radstag. A baby radstag. And in his panicked state he didn’t even hit it. They stood in silence for a moment, eyes wide and mouth agape. The stag broke the stare and bounded off into the forest. The synth watched the double headed stag leap over a log and disappear. The forest fell in silence again.   
“Shit” he hissed under his breath. He wasted three bullets and gave away his position in one moment. He glanced around wildly, checking for movement. He started to panic. He couldn’t see the courser, but he knew the courser could see him. He was dead. He was so dead.   
“I gotta find the vault,” he whispered to himself, his voice shaking. If he could just get a bearing, if he just knew what direction to head in he could start running.   
There was a rustling nearby, and a noise a radstag couldn’t make; a click of a gun.   
He knew what direction to run in, and that was the opposite direction of the courser. He broke into a sprint. There was a burst of movement behind him, and sounds of gunshots ricocheting around him. It was the courser, unless there was a gunslinging radscorpion out in the commonwealth. God, how scary would that be? A bullet whizzed past his ear, and the synth decided he’d rather deal with the radscorpion.   
He was heaving again. Dammit, if they made his lungs couldn’t they make them better or something? But then they wouldn’t be able to catch them when they escaped, would they? They wouldn’t be able to run them down, and drag them kicking and screaming back to the Institute and do God knows what to them? Do they even let them live? Are they even alive to begin with? Another shot nicked his shoulder and he cried out in surprise, snapping him back to reality. He focused too much on getting away instead of where he was going, and before he realized it his foot had got caught on a bare root, sending him tumbling down a ravine grunting and cussing.   
He landed with a hard whump on something hard and flat. He lay there for a moment, briefly considering giving up. He had no right to escape did he? He wasn’t Andrew. He had Andrew’s dirty blonde hair, his dark blue eyes, his slender body lightly toned from working hard in the fields. But they weren’t his. They were Andrew’s. He never worked in the fields. He didn’t have parents. And he took all of that away from a kid barely twenty named Andrew. He even took his name.   
He placed his hand on the ground below him. The ground was concrete beneath him, scraping his hand. He drew his chin up, and before him was a giant gear shaped door with bright yellow numbers that read 541.   
It’s real? He thought incredulously. It sat just inside a small cave, covered in dead vines. It would have been almost impossible to find if he hadn’t have stumbled right into it. He scrambled to his feet and pressed himself as flat as he could against the cool hard door. There was movement above him, footsteps. Sand trickled down the side of the embankment. The synth placed his hand over his pistol. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, the courser would have him on the ground before he could fire of a single round. It just made him feel safer feeling the cool handle of the gun, his only protection. The synth held his breath and for an agonizing moment there was nothing but still silence. There’s no way he doesn’t know I’m down here, he thought in a panic. Just as he thought it was over there was a sound in the distance. The courser heard it too, because suddenly there was a scuffle of steps and a black figure running into the woods. The synth smirked in relief, imagining it was that damn baby radstag again.   
As soon as the courser was out of sight he felt around for a switch, a button, anything that would open the door. Hands shaking, he felt around the cool rock wall next to the door until his fingers felt a small metal button. He was a bit surprised, and wondered in the back of his mind why it wasn’t a complicated system of switches, or a giant red button or something, but he didn’t have time to question it.   
“Gotcha,” he breathed, pressing the button and taking a step back. The door rumbled and shook causing little waterfalls of soil from the overhang. The synth looked around nervously, it was making enough noise to blow his cover. Sure enough, there he was, black coat fluttering dramatically in the breeze, his steel gaze locked onto him. The synth inhaled sharply and ducked inside, slamming the big red button as he ran past. He knew the courser had plenty of time to make it in behind him, but he could hope couldn’t he?   
“Halt, D5-27!” the courser said in a commanding monotone voice, strolling into the vault like he owned the place. “You are malfunctioning. Please return to the Institute for re-conditioning.”   
“In your dreams,” he muttered, ducking through a dark doorway. Half, if not most, of the power was still working in the vault. He didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings as he ran through the dark corridors, twisting and turning here and there to throw the courser off of his scent. It wasn’t much use, he could hear him a few rooms behind him, throwing tables and chairs out of his way like they were made of paper. The synth shimmied through a small hole in a connecting wall then placed a bookshelf in front of it as quietly as he could. He took a few quiet steadying breaths as he heard the courser draw near. Heavy, deliberate boot steps echoed in the empty room just on the other side of the bookcase.   
“Sensors indicate target is near,” the courser stated. Then, after a moment he stated “Sensors indicate oncoming threat.”  
The synth cocked his eyebrow and glanced at his pistol. With only 3 rounds left it was hardly a threat.   
“Sensors indicate oncoming threat,” the courser stated again, this time farther away from the synth’s hideout. He let out a relieved sigh, silently thanking the radroach that was probably scuttling off in the distance. He glanced around the room he ducked into. There was a dusty dresser and moldy smelling bed, each of them broken and splintered. It didn’t look dilapidated and forgotten like most abandoned abodes littering the wasteland, it looked like someone, or something, had a tantrum. A large something. He crept as quietly as he could towards the door, an airlock door that was rusted half-open, when he heard a large commotion. There was the sound of a gun going off, and the sound of furniture being thrown around. The synth pulled the door open, on the same side as the room he was previous in, and peered around the corner. He knew he should have ran, but he also wanted to see what exactly he was running from.   
The courser had switched to a heavier weapon- an Institute rifle- and was firing at…nothing. He was holding a defensive stance as his rifle shot beams into thin air. Is he malfunctioning? The air he was shooting into was wavy, like the vapor coming off of a hot surface. The wavering air mass moved, part of it engulfing the courser. The synth watched in curios horror as the courser was lifted up, struggling with the mass of wavering air, unable to shoot. The wavering mass began to change, to solidify, and it finally took shape in front of him. The synth’s mouth hung open, frozen in terror.   
It was a chameleon deathclaw.


	2. Tank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does the ability to talk make a deathclaw less scary, or more scary? Let's find out!

Panic gripped the Andrew-synth. He watched in horror as the courser was lifted into the air, struggling against the powerful grip the deathclaw had him in. It repeated the phrase “Threat Detected” over and over in an emotionless tone as the deathclaw roared in his face. The beast lifted him up high by the neck, drew his free hands back, and in one fluid motion the razor sharp claws ripped through the courser. Black blood- or oil maybe- splattered against the clean white wall behind it. The courser stopped mid sentence, there was a buzzing, a metallic hiss, then silence. The deathclaw held it in it’s claws for a moment, glaring at it with what would appear to the synth as a look of disgust, then flung it down the hallway.   
The courser’s corpse clattered loudly on the floor in front of the synth, causing him to yelp. The Deathclaw snapped it’s attention to his direction, it’s lizard tongue flicking in and out of it’s mouth. The synth ducked back into the room, clasping his hands over his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut, praying to whatever god would listen to something like him that the beast didn’t hear him. Heavy footsteps made their way closer to his position. He scrambled back as fast and quietly as he could to the back of the room. As he squeezed back through the hole he came in he heard the metallic screeching of the busted airlock door being torn open.   
The synth scrambled back into the room and looked around wildly for another way out. The deathclaw’s snout appeared in the hole, snarling as he clawed at the sides in an attempt to make it bigger. On instinct, the synth grabbed a nearby vase and threw it as hard as he could at the snout. The deathclaw gave a painful snort and jerked back out of the hole.   
Great, he thought, I successfully made it mad.   
He pounded the airlock control on the door as the monster's footsteps circled back out of the room next door to his.   
Okay, no problem, he thought, this thing will be clawing at the door trying to get in, giving me enough time to-  
His thoughts were interrupted by the woosh of the airlock. The synth stared at awe for a moment. How did it figure out the airlock control? He didn’t dwell on it long. The deathclaw lunged forward and he narrowly dodged it’s grasping claws and shuffled back through the hole. He thought he heard the thing huff in annoyance behind him. He bolted out of the torn-up airlock doorway, but tripped on something large and thick. He landed on his shoulder that was injured by the courser’s bullet and let out a painful grunt. He rolled onto his back, momentarily blinded by pain, when he saw the monster looming above him, teeth gleaming. He didn’t even have a chance to sit up when the thing trapped him under his giant hand, razor sharp claws on either side of his head. The air was knocked out of his lungs upon impact as he struggled weakly.   
“L-let-GO!” he grunted through clenched teeth, struggling to free his arms. The deathclaw put more weight on his hand, nearly crushing the synth’s chest.   
“So, they sent two this time?” the thing snarled.   
The synth ceased struggling for a moment out of surprise. “You…can…t-talk?” he wheezed. Every word caused him pain, and his stutter was uncontrollable.   
The deathclaw’s snout grew closer to his head. “Don’t play dumb,” he huffed, “you know exactly what I am, and I know exactly what you are, and we both know that this is going to end now.”  
“No…w-wait…” he whimpered,resuming his useless struggling.  
The deathclaw growled, almost smiling, as his snout drew closer to the synth’s head. The synth began to panic, alarms blaring in his brain and all he could think about was his damn pistol. He struggled with his right hand, moving it towards his belt until he could feel the cool smooth handle.   
This will probably hurt both of us, but fuck it, what do I have to lose?  
He felt for the trigger, hoped it wasn’t pointed towards his junk, and pulled it.   
A shooting pain went down his leg and for a terrifying moment he thought all he had succeeded in doing was shooting himself in the leg. The deathclaw screeched and drew his hand back. As he examined his bloody hand the synth took the opportunity to try to escape. He struggled to his feet, gasping in pain as he landed on his wounded leg, and hobbled as fast as he could to the nearest room; the kitchen. Ignoring the pain, and the blood trickling down his leg, he made his way to the dark corner of the kitchen, behind the counter. He opened a cabinet door and slid inside, hissing in pain as he squeezed inside, bringing his knees up to his chest. He barely had the door closed before he heard the deathclaw storm in.   
“I know you’re in here synth,” the thing spat, “I can smell your blood!”  
The synth drew in quick panicked breaths. He gingerly touched his leg and winced. It was bleeding down the entire length of his leg. The bullet didn’t appear to have gone in, but it did take out a good chunk of his skin while it shot past. He felt something warm and wet dripping down his arm. During the altercation his shoulder wound had opened wider, and had been bleeding heavier.   
He was covered in blood.   
“You left a trail,” the deathclaw remarked, his claws clacking on the floor closer and closer. “Are you going to come out and go painlessly? Or are you going to stay in there and bleed to death?”  
The synth was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Tears were streaming down his face, cutting clean trails through the dirt on his face. He placed a shaky hand on his shoulder in an attempt to apply pressure to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t even slow down. It seeped out from under his hand. He didn’t even try to stop the bleeding on his leg; the wound was long, and traveled the length of it.   
“I know you’re in one of these cabinets,” the deathclaw cooed, closer than before, “but which one?” There was a metallic scraping sound coming from the opposite side of the room. “Could it be…THIS ONE?” He heard something puncture the cabinet a few feet from him, then the metallic screeching as it was ripped off it’s hinges.   
“Hmm, nope, not that one,” the door clattered on the ground near his hiding spot, causing him to jump.   
“Maybe…THIS ONE?” another metallic puncture, this time much closer. It sounded like it was right next to him.   
I’m next, oh god, I’m next!  
The heavy footfalls came closer, then stopped in front of the doors. “Hmm…lot of blood in front of this one. Maybe third time’s the charm?” He drug his claws against the door, making small indented lines. The sound cut through the synth’s brain like a knife. Part of him wanted to beg for his life, but there was a small naive part of him that hoped he would move on to the next cabinet.   
The claws burst through the door, and he let out a scream. He tried to flatten himself against the wall as much as he could when the door was ripped off its hinges.   
That’s going to be me, he thought morbidly as he watched the claws rip through the stainless steel like paper. He continued to press himself against the wall, slipping on his own blood that almost covered the floor. He tried to make words, but all that would come out was terrified gasps.  
The deathclaw’s head filled the doorway, his maw hanging open in a smile. The synth couldn’t take his eyes off of his giant teeth.   
“Found you.”  
“W-wait…wait wait wait!” the synth cried as the maw drew closer. “Don’t, p-please! What do you want? Tell me what you w-want I’ll do it-” he wasn’t even sure what he was bargaining for, what would he have that a deathclaw didn’t?  
“I want you to be an example to the Institute,” the monster growled, “I want you to be proof of what I’ll do to them if they keep hunting me down!”  
“Ins-stitute? H-hunting?” he mumbled in disbelief. If he wasn’t terrified for his life he would have found his stuttering annoying.   
The deathclaw snorted. “I bet they programmed you to beg for your life, didn’t they? They know I have a soft spot for humans, that’s why they tried to destroy me. I didn’t turned out as planned. But you’re not human, are you?”  
The synths mouth hung open. He figured if he lied, it wouldn’t improve his situation anyway.  
“N-no…” he said barely above a whisper, his voice wavering from trembling so bad. He could feel the deathclaw’s hot breath on his face. There was no getting out of this one. This was it. He took in a shaky breath and broke into sobs.   
“Pl-lease,” he hiccuped, “Please don’t kill me…I’m not from the Ins-stitute…I was made there…but I didn’t…”  
“You don’t what?”   
“I-I didn’t ask to be made!” he yelled, kicking the wall with his good leg. “I went to bed last night thinking I was Andrew Sm-mith, and I woke up this morning knowing that I wasn’t, that my entire life was a lie, that my family is fake, and the poor kid that is Andrew is probably dead and it’s all my fault…”  
His sobs grew harder as he pushed his forehead into his knees. His tears mingled with the blood on his leg.   
“I know I have no right to be here,” he said after he took some sobering breaths, “I know I have no right to be alive, but, I-I’m just so scared of dying!”  
He paused, waiting for a retort from the deathclaw that was mere inches away from him, but he remained silent except for the heavy breaths that blew across the synth’s bangs.  
“I’m sca-scared because I don’t know where I’ll go when I die,” he continued, “I mean, there’s a heaven and hell for humans, for ghouls too probably, what about s-synths? Where will I go?”  
The deathclaw let out a long heavy sigh. The synth braced himself, ready to be eviscerated, to be ripped in half or his head bitten off, but nothing happened for a long agonizing moment that seemed to stretch on forever. He could feel his heart slamming against his chest, pumping blood out of his wounds. He clenched his jaw as anger began to form a tight knot in his stomach.   
“Will you j-just fucking do it already?” he exploded. The deathclaw recoiled in surprise. “If you’re going to do it, and there’s no chance for me, then j-just do it. Quit torturing me by dragging this out! I’m tired of being in pain and scared, if this is it then I just-I just-” He broke out into sobs again. He was conflicted between hope and accepting his demise.   
The deathclaw shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not trying to torture you,” he said defensively.   
“The fuck you aren’t!” the synth cried. Momentarily blinded by anger, he struck out and hit the deathclaw in his tender leathery snout. He pulled his fist back, eyes wide in shock.  
Well I fucked up.  
The deathclaw jerked his head back, lips snarled back in pain. He blinked two or three times, his eyes watering. He rubbed his nose with his injured hand absentmindedly, then drew it back in pain.   
“I’m-I’m sorry,” he apologized profusely, “Holy shit am I sorry…I-I lost control-”  
The deathclaw chuckled. “You’re a little pistol, aren’t you?”  
He sighed, relieved the beast didn’t tear his head off. “Yeah, well, if I’m a pistol then you’re a fucking tank,” the synth said, half joking, half terrified.   
“Hm,” the deathclaw snorted, scrunching his nose up and down. He directed his gaze at the synth, still trembling on the floor of the cabinet in his own blood. “I almost went too far this time,” he mumbled.   
“Huh?”   
The deathclaw shook his head. “What’s your name?”  
The synth stared at the deathclaw, then stared at the floor in thought. He almost answered Andrew, but he knew that wasn’t right. He figured it was some inane string of numbers and letters.   
“You don’t have one, do you?” the deathclaw said gently.  
He let out a quiet sigh. “No.”  
“Yes, they didn’t give me one either.”  
The synth glanced at him curiously. “You either? They…they made you too?”  
The deathclaw nodded slowly. Now that the adrenalin was beginning to wear off, the beast didn’t seem as terrifying. His eyes looked more human, almost sad. There was a long awkward silence.   
He must be weighing his options, he thought, hoping the scales tipped in his favor.   
The beast drew in a deep breath and let out a long heavy sigh. “Alright Pistol, what do you say we call a truce? Come on out of there and I’ll get you fixed up.”  
Pistol, he supposed was his name now, glanced at the beast nervously. His options were severely limited. “Okay Tank,” he quipped back, hoping to keep the deathclaw in good spirits. He struggled to get up, but it wasn’t easy. His bullet wound went from his hip to his knee. The wound on his shoulder was beginning to clot, but was still bleeding quite a bit. He grunted as he got to his feet only to topple over on his hands and his knees.   
“Woah there,” Tank said, reaching out to grab him. Pistol flinched away, afraid of his claws. “It’s alright,” Tank assured him, “they’re not as long as you think.”   
He wasn’t lying. Pistol always heard that their claws were a foot long, but his were less than half that. He didn’t resist as Tank gingerly placed his hand underneath him and helped him to his feet. He leaned against the counter top, suddenly aware of bruises on his body that he neglected when he was fleeing for his life. His muscles were sore and tired and all he wanted to do was lie down and not get up. He had a million questions for Tank, but all his brain could process now was how much pain he was in.   
“The sleeping quarters are in the southern corridor,” tank motioned down to the hallway to the left of them, “do you think you can make it that far?”  
Pistol glanced at the hallway. He knew it was just a few feet away but it looked as if it stretched out forever.   
“I think?” he said unconvincingly. He pushed himself off the counter and tried to walk on his own but all he managed to do was stumble back against the counter.   
“I don’t think so,” Tank sighed.   
“So what, you’re going to carry me over the threshold bridal style?” Pistol grunted, trying to walk again.   
“I wonder if the real Andrew talked back this much,” Tank grumbled. A look of pain crossed Pistol’s face momentarily. “Sorry. That was rude.”  
Pistol shook his head. “Man, to think I was almost killed by the wasteland’s most polite deathclaw.”   
After much coercion, Tank managed to convince Pistol to climb onto his back. Pistol straddled his back just behind his hump, grasping onto one of his spikes. He could feel the powerful muscles moving under the leather hide beneath him. Pistol felt like he was losing his mind. Now he was riding on top of the most powerful beast in the Commonwealth, who was taking care of him not even an hour after ripping a courser in half. Pistol tried to keep himself from passing out by paying attention to his surroundings. The rooms further within the vault were much cleaner than the rooms Pistol hid in. There wasn’t any bed frames, only large mattresses in the corner of the rooms. There wasn’t a dresser in any of the rooms, but each one had a bookshelf with well worn books in them. A few had a chemistry set in it, and some had an easel and oil paints with a half-finished painting resting in the corner. Everything was dusty, and looked as if the people- or whatever- was using them left in a hurry.   
“I’ll take you to my room,” Tank said, “it’s less…dusty.”  
There was a hint of sadness in his voice. Pistol was about to ask what happened to the people that used to live in the vault, but decided against it.   
“We’re almost there,” Tank broke the awkward silence, “It’s just past the atrium.”  
Pistol gasped as they passed through the archway. Row after row of large bookshelves filled half of the atrium, the other half was littered with large tables and lamps. Pistol heard through caravan traders passing through his settlement that some of the vaults were used as experiments.   
“What kind of vault was this?” he asked, gazing at the bookshelves as they passed.   
Tank sighed. “I’ll explain later,” he said, “right now we need to stop your bleeding.”  
“What about your would?” Pistol asked sheepishly. He felt guilty about it now.   
“It’s already healing. The bullet didn’t go in, and folks like me have a very fast healing ability.”  
Pistol nodded and didn’t press the issue. They didn’t say another word until they reached Tank’s room. It looked like the others, a large mattress in the corner of the floor, no dresser, and a large bookshelf full of books.   
“Do you read?” he asked. He hoped he didn’t sound too insulting.   
“Yes. I’ve read every book in that book case at least three times.”  
Pistol gazed in wonder at the worn books. There was at least a hundred of them. “What about the ones in the atrium?”   
Tank set him down gently on the giant mattress and let out a sad sigh. “No,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t touch those.”  
As Tank very gently tended to his wounds (which was amazing considering his size,) things finally began clicking into place in Pistol’s mind. All the dusty rooms with large mattresses that were almost exactly like Tank’s, the thousands upon thousands of books that lived in the vault, the rooms near the entrance that were torn apart by something much larger than a man; he finally found out what experiment this vault was created for.   
“This place was created for intelligent deathclaws,” Pistol gasped in wonder.   
“Very astute,” Tank sighed, sounding very weary, “I suppose now I must tell you the whole story.”   
“I’ve got all the time in the world to listen,” Pistol said, trying to sound sincere.   
“Very well then. Allow me to patch you up, then I’ll tell you the whole sordid tale.”


	3. Tank's Sordid Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tank gives us the details of his tragic past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, not sure if I have to put this in every chapter, but I guess I should give the disclosure that the lore of Fallout is infamous for being all over the place. I've done the best I can, but there's just so much it's overwhelming and now with 76 lot of it is debatable, so, be gentle :)

“How much do you know about the vaults?” Tank asked.  
Pistol bundled himself up in a musty blanket on the corner of the huge mattress. He didn’t feel like he was in immediate danger anymore, but the very primal instinct inside of him said ‘keep your distance from the giant thing with sharp teeth.’ Besides, despite his stature he did an alright job of patching him up just as he promised.  
“I know that there’s a lot of them,” Pistol said, “I know that they were built before the Great War, to protect people from the bombs. And I know some of them are still inhabited by people, weirdly enough.”  
“Protect people,” Tank snorted.   
“Aren’t they?”  
“That’s what they wanted you to believe.”  
Piston nodded thoughtfully. “I think I’ve heard some of them were used for…experiments,” his voice trailed off.   
“Yes.”   
Pistol stared at him blankly, waiting for him to continue.   
Tank took in a deep sigh. “A lot of people have been protected by the vaults, that much is true. But that was just circumstantial. The vaults were built to house experiments.”  
“All of them?”  
“All of them.”   
“Damn,” Pistol breathed. “Humans really are cruel creatures.”  
“Not all of them,” Tank said softly. “As I was saying, this vault was an experiment, just as any other. The Institute had heard about the development of Deathclaws. They had heard rumors of the Enclave’s attempt at breeding intelligent ones, but those had failed. They didn’t mention the details, just that they had failed, so the Institute made the assumption the deathclaws couldn’t remain intelligent and regressed into their primal nature. I’m not sure what the original use of this vault was, but the Institute cleared it out and re-fitted it for their…experiments.”  
“Cleared it out? That didn’t mean…they didn’t kill people, did they?”  
Tank’s small yet expressive eyes stared into Pistol’s.   
“I see,” Pistol said.   
“As I was saying, the Institute prepared themselves for failure, expecting all of us to turn feral. In actuality, what had happened was much worse for them. They only anticipated our kind to gain enough intelligence to follow commands, like a dog. We didn’t stop there. Our minds grew and our intelligence expanded. We began to crave knowledge. We asked for books and music, we wanted to paint and write. Of course, that was a bit difficult given our physical build. We came to realize that our minds didn’t quite match our bodies. We were built for war, after all. But what our bodies could destroy we wanted to create. Back then, the Institute had to handle us hands on. The synth program was in it’s infant stage. They didn’t have synths-” he stopped and cleared his throat politely.   
“They didn’t have synths like me,” Pistol said, “Smart enough to follow commands but disposable enough to save their asses.”   
“Those aren’t the words I would use, but yes.”  
“I don’t know how to pronounce half the words you use,” Pistol muttered bitterly.   
Tank huffed, and continued. “What I am getting at is that the humans had to work with us one on one. They turned the pages of the books, they set up the easels for our canvases, they brought us the music for us to listen to. We developed relationships with them, after a time. They trusted us, and we…we trusted them. And really, we were both fools. Because we all trusted the Institute. And that was the mistake.   
“There were ‘classes’ put into place for us. Some of the humans tried to train us for combat. They instructed us on how to use our claws, where the softest part of the human body was, how to rip through a suit of power armor, and in my case, stealth. You see, we weren’t all the same build. My kind were known as the chameleons. We were smaller than the others, but we could cloak ourselves, as I’m sure you saw earlier.”  
Pistol nodded, trying to push the horrific image out of his head.   
“The Alphas were larger, they were the actual tanks really. They were meant to be on the front lines, bolstering themselves through any blockade. The females- they were called ‘matriarchs’- they were the most intelligent. They were to be giving out commands to the others, to be tactical. And of course, to breed.”  
“But none of this happened, did it?”  
“No. Although we were intelligent, we couldn’t wrap our heads around the concept of destroying the creatures we had come to grow so close to. It’s not what we wanted to do. We resisted. And that was the true failure they had not anticipated. It’s what they’re failing at now, with your kind. They give creatures like you and I the ability to think for ourselves but didn’t anticipate that we would exercise our free will.”  
Pistol rubbed his sore shoulder and winced. He had felt fear. He felt it just like a human would. And yet most of the Commonwealth would think he had just as much sentience as a toaster.   
“Idiots,” he spat.   
“Indeed. You would think they would learn from their mistakes, wouldn’t you? I suppose that’s the folly of man. They think if they can create life, they can control it. They’re not gods, just children playing with matches. They think they can control the fires they start. But fire is wild and unpredictable.”  
“Good analogy.”  
“Thank you,” Tank said. Pistol could tell by the air of pride in his voice he had been thinking that up for years.   
“What happened next?”  
Tank drew his arm up and scratched the back of his neck. It was such a human gesture that it looked unrealistic when he did it. “What you would expect really. We should have seen it coming, but we didn’t. We were too naive. We didn’t want to think that the ones we had grown so close to would betray us. I had grown particularly close to a lad your age. Michael was his name, but he insisted on being called ‘Mikey.’” Tank’s snout crinkled into a smile and his eyes lit up. “He was so exuberant and full of energy. Always quick witted, that one. You would have hated him.”  
Pistol wrinkled his nose.  
“He was smart too. Extremely intelligent. He worked in the engineering devision with his parents. Really, his only job there was to make sure all of the systems were running smoothly; enough energy to keep the lights on, making sure the oxygen was being recycled properly, that sort of thing. A jack of all trades, that one. Eventually he was assigned to teaching us how to use terminals.” He broke out a laugh so loud it startled Pistol. “They wanted us to be able to hack into electrical doors! Can you believe it? Imagine a creature like me trying to hack into a tiny terminal with hands powerful enough to rip the blasted door off of it’s hinges.”  
Pistol smirked. That was pretty funny.   
“The irony wasn’t lost on Mikey. He gave up on it pretty quickly and rigged up the terminals to play movies instead.”  
“Movies? Like, before the Great War?” Pistol asked in wonder. He had heard of them, moving pictures with sound. But he had never seen them in person. “What were they like?”  
“The ones the men in charge showed us were pretty bland. They were simply propaganda made to convince us to charge into combat. Mikey managed to dig up some that were much more entertaining. They were so uplifting. Some were about lovers meeting for the first time, others had humans singing and dancing, and some were drawings that moved.”  
“Cartoons?”   
“Yes, that’s what he called them,” Tank scratched his chin thoughtfully, “he particularly liked those. I didn’t care much for them. Too silly. I was more partial to the singing and dancing, and the ones that showed the world before the Great War.”  
Pistol hummed thoughtfully. He really wanted Tank to describe more of these movies to him, but the pain in his wounds began to dull and he was getting tired. “What happened to him?”  
Tank’s smile turned downward, bordering on a snarl. “He betrayed us. They all did. The Institute marked us as a complete failure, and decided to terminate the project. That was their jargon for ‘kill every last one of them.’ The cowards did it in the middle of the night. We were all asleep in our rooms, like this one. One by one, they had their men sneak in with silent weapons. One shot in the head was all that was needed. I imagine most of my brothers and sisters were awake, and simply didn’t expect their humans to betray them like that. I certainly didn’t. My brother in the room next to me, who was always leery of the humans, was the one who sounded the alarm. He saw the human sneak in with his shiny silent weapon, and before it could go off he bellowed a warning roar that woke the rest of us. The gunshots were no longer quiet and precise. They were loud, frantic, panicked. I could see flashes of gunfire in the dark. I, being a chameleon, cloaked myself and threw myself down the hallway. I could see my brothers and sister’s limp bodies on their beds, a single trickle of blood down their foreheads. I saw humans, parts of humans, strewn about. And I saw Mikey, standing there with a gun in his hands just before me. He couldn’t see me, and I almost ripped him asunder in my blind rage. But something in his face stopped me. He looked terrified, as I would imagine a weak human like him would. But he also looked a little sad. I spared him. I scurried around the vault, killing the other humans instead. I tried to save my siblings- any of them- but it was all so…” he stopped and drooped his head low. Pistol waited quietly, giving him a moment to collect himself.   
“After an hour of silence after the madness, I crawled out of the hole I hid myself in. After seeing the carnage of what they had done to us- those that we called friends- I could feel rage welling up inside of me. I think in that moment I was very close to regressing into my feral state. But one thing brought me back. I saw Mikey’s gun lying on the floor next to one of my brothers, both the gun and the bullet in my brother’s head still warm. I decided in that moment I would have my revenge.”   
Pistol inhaled deeply, trying to process everything he had just heard. “I’m- I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.   
Tank nodded deeply and closed his eyes. Pistol wondered if deathclaws could cry.   
“But,” Pistol said after a moment, “why did you stay here then? If you wanted revenge, why did you just settle down here?”  
“After I buried my siblings and threw out the human bodies, I was so exhausted. Not just physically, but in my soul. I decided that more than revenge, I just wanted peace. I didn’t want to see any more blood shed, and I certainly did not want to cause any more of it either. The Institute had assumed that every last one of us was dead. I’m certain that I am the only survivor, and because I was cloaked and in hiding, I could see why they thought that. However, they must have realized they were one body short, because every once in a blue moon one of their coursers will wonder down here to see if any of us had survived.”  
“Oh,” Pistol whispered.   
“Yes, that’s why I attacked you. I thought they were sending them in pairs now. Again, I’m sorry.”  
“I know,” Pistol said earnestly, “it’s okay. I get it now. I’m glad that we got it, you know, sorted out…”   
Tank chuckled. “What will you do now, young synth? Where will you go?”  
Pistol’s chest heaved deeply. “I don’t know. I don’t think I have anywhere to go.”   
“Well, you could always stay here. You may not be a deathclaw, but we’re both connected by the Institute’s malicious follies.”   
“So many big words,” Pistol smirked. “I guess so. But, I don’t think I can stay down here.”  
Tank nodded. “This is no way to live, I can assure you. But I’ve never been to the surface.”   
“Never?”  
Tank shook his large head slowly.   
“Well, you’re in for a treat, let me tell you.”   
“You want to go back out there? After all of that?”  
“Of course.”   
“Why?”  
Pistol looked at him darkly as he settled into bed. “You may have given up on your revenge, but I haven’t.”


	4. Out of the Vault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pistol and Tank strike out of the vault ( I suck at summaries, don't know if you can tell by now...)

The more Pistol learned about himself, the more he understood how his ‘parents’ learned he was a synth. He thought synths were supposed to be an exact replica of the person they were replacing. However Pistol, with his memories of Andrew still intact in his mind, discovered he was almost nothing like him. Andrew was a simple farmer, and that was about the end of his abilities. He wasn’t very agile, there were memories of him running from a fight and cowering behind the workbench behind their hovel, and he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. When Pistol left the vault with Tank, the divide between who he was supposed to be and who he actually was grew to the size of a canyon.   
You can’t make your way through the commonwealth peacefully. It’s just not possible. Trouble will find you. Whether you’re an innocent settler or a vicious raider, a fight for your life is inevitable. Pistol made his peace with this after only one altercation with two nomadic raiders. Tank had a more difficult time with it. Despite being betrayed by humans, he still held sympathy for them. It wasn’t easy surviving the wasteland when you were a hulking monster with razor sharp claws, it was even harder for the soft fleshy humans.   
Pistol’s proficiency with a gun surprised even himself. It was like he was born- well, made- with one attached to his hand. Hunting in the wastes gave him plenty of practice. He was well aware of how slender he was, and decided to train himself to be more stealthy than strong. He took to stealth like a mirelurk to mud. He would dart around a raider camp like he was invisible. Then one day, miraculously, he actually became invisible.   
It had happened during a routine hunt in the wastes. He and Tank had been tracking a small herd of radstags through a blasted forest. Using Tanks ability made hunting a cinch. He would turn invisible and move ahead of the animals as Pistol, plainly visible, would herd them towards Tank. It was a bizarre sight to see; a stag bounding away, then jerked up into the air, and suddenly a slash would appear on it’s throat, and it would stop moving. They never killed does or foals.   
They had herded a group of stags along side a large lake. The waterfront made it easier; radstags couldn’t swim so they stayed out of the water. It made herding them much easier. As Pistol watched a stag being jerked up into the air, there was a deafening sound behind him. The earth quaked, and a shower of water and mud flew everywhere. A mountain of mud rose up, then slid away to reveal a Mirelurk queen.   
“Pistol!” Tank shouted, forgetting the stag, “Run!”   
No shit, he thought in a panic. He turned to run as the giant crustacian roared in his direction, but his foot was sucked into the muddy earth and he fell flat on his face. He coughed up muck and rolled on his back, just in time to see the queen spitting poison everywhere. He tried to claw through the mud away from the thing, but a bout of poison hit him square in the face and incapacitated him. His breathing became more labored as he watched the thing move closer and closer.   
God I wish I could turn invisible like Tank!  
The queen stopped short, twisting back and forth in confusion. He stayed perfectly still. The poisonous mucus made his face itch, but he didn’t dare to scratch it. His eyes darted down to his legs…wait, where were his legs? He looked at his arms and hands, but all he could see was that weird wavy shimmer Tank gets when-  
When he turns invisible!  
Pistol wasn’t sure if he should feel excited or terrified, but he had to focus on getting away from certain death first. He waited for the queen to scuttle away from him, still looking for the little squishy morsel that eluded her, then carefully and slowly picked himself off of the bank. He made his way towards Tank’s direction as silently as possible with his invisible hands stretched out. Finally, relieved, he felt Tank’s scaly rough hide beneath them.   
“Tank,” he whispered, “I’m invisible!”  
“I can see that,” he whispered tersely, “Or, rather I can’t. Anyway, it won’t matter if you melt from that poison. Let’s get out of here!”  
Pistol felt around on Tank’s body until he felt the ridges on his back and hauled himself up, grasping the spikes on his back and holding on tight as Tank bounded off into the woods away from danger…and their dinner. 

“How did you do that?” Tank asked. They had made camp in the ruins of a wrecked plane. Their campfire was safely hidden within the metal walls of what was left of the fuselage.   
“I have no idea,” Pistol said, slowly shaking his head and staring blankly into the fire. Since they had to leave the radstag behind, radroach was on the menu. Again. “I just thought- I thought about how you can turn invisible, and I thought really hard about doing it too. Willing myself, I mean. I can’t believe it worked.”   
Tank took in a heavy breath and stared out into nothing. He knew the subject of synths was a delicate topic for Pistol, so he had to choose his words carefully.   
“Perhaps, whoever- you know, brought you into being-”  
“Whoever made me,” Pistol said, poking the fire with a pool cue he found under one of the seats. Who takes a pool cue with them on an airplane anyway?  
“Yes. Whoever made you, maybe they gave you a few extra abilities? Like they did for my kind, that is.”   
Pistol poked at the radroach meat on the grill over the fire. It was ready. “Maybe,” he said as he pushed on on his plate, and one on Tank’s. He had grown quite fond of Tank but still in the very back of his brain he was worried what would happen if Tank got too hungry. “But why would they give this ability to a dirt farmer?”  
Tank thought for a moment, then shrugged.   
“No wonder my pa-, his parents found me out so easily. I remember the day before, we were attacked by gunners. They’re like raiders, if raiders were more organized and trained harder. I remember thinking how this time I refused to run, I refused to let any of them hurt my family.” He snorted harshly. “That’s what it all boiled down to. I wanted to protect them so much I was willing to put my life on the line for them. I picked up a gun, and just,” he made a motion with his hand like he was shooting invisible ducks at a fair game. “I mean, it surprised the hell out of me too. I didn’t miss a single shot. The other gunners just gave up and ran off. I remember looking around, expecting my neighbors, my family to be cheering for me, or at least impressed, but they were all so… scared. They looked more frightened of me than they did the gunners. That night, as I went to bed, I told my mother I loved her like I did every night, and-” he choked on his words, tears welling up in his eyes. He took a deep steadying breath and continued. “And, she said nothing. Not a word. She just looked at me. I had never seen a more hateful look in my life, and it was from my…my own mother-” Pistol finally broke, sobbing harshly.   
Tank hummed sympathetically but said nothing, allowing Pistol to let it all out.   
“I’m- I’m nothing Tank,” he said between sobs, “I took this kid’s life…I broke his mother’s heart…but she’s my mother too! I know she isn’t really, but I love her, and I remember the love she gave me when she thought I was-” he sniffed and let out a breath. “Nothing is real, but it all feels so real to me. I can’t make sense out of my own memories, because they were never mine to begin with.”   
“You’re not nothing,” Tank said gently.   
“What am I then? A synth? Andrew? A spy? An assasin? I don’t have an identity.”  
“Yes you do,” Tank said, “You’re Pistol. And you’re my friend.”   
Pistol looked at him and felt all of the fight go out of him.   
“You need to make your own identity. We both do. That’s why we left the vault remember?”   
Pistol frowned and nodded reluctantly. That wasn’t entirely true for Pistol. He had a lot of anger welled up in him- at the raiders for killing and harassing what he thought was his family, at the institute for making him in the first place, at the Minutemen who did absolutely nothing to help them in the first place. He didn’t know what to do with it all, so he wandered around with it in his chest like a mini-nuke loaded into a fat man launcher.   
“I know you’re angry,” Tank said, almost reading his mind. “But you have to be careful with that anger. You might be a synth, but you still have humanity in you. If you lose it, you truly will be nothing but a machine. There’s more to helping people than blindly killing every raider you come across.”   
Pistol crossed his arms. He knew Tank was right, but he didn’t like to hear it. He was aware of how flippant he was about killing raiders, and it did scare him a little. But he felt a certain amount of guilt letting them go. For every raider he let go, that might be an innocent life lost down the road.   
“I’m not blind,” Pistol said stubbornly. “Do you think those raiders that kill deserve to live?”   
“Do you think all of them kill? Some raiders only steal without taking a single life. Do they deserve to be condemned to death? If they don’t have the heart to kill, perhaps they’re doing it out of desperation, have you given any thought to that?”  
Pistol clenched his fists, then relaxed them. “No.”   
“Perhaps you should.”  
“This is all so easy for you to say,” Pistol snapped. “You’ve never had anybody taken away from you by raiders. Would you feel the same if it was someone from the Institute?”   
Tank said nothing.  
“Exactly.”   
“That’s different,” Tank argued, “Raiders might raid out of desperation, but the Institute is anything but desperate. Everything they do is intentional. They didn’t make you or me out of desperation, they just did it because they could. They want to play God and they try to hide it behind a thin veil of altruistic notions. They’re the ones that would have everything that’s coming to them!” Tank’s voice grew deeper. Pistol moved away nervously. “Sorry,” Tank said, noticing, “they just make me so mad. Look what they’ve done to us.”  
“No, you’re right,” Pistol said, “they need to be dealt with. They need to be stopped. We’re not doing anybody a service wandering around and killing random raiders that attack us. We need to take the fight to the Institute.”  
Tank chuckled.   
“What? What’s so funny?”  
“Nothing. Just, I’m glad you’re focusing on something more noble, but the Institute is an awful big mole rat to tackle on our own. We’ll need some help.”  
“You’re suggesting the Minutemen?” he asked incredulously, “what have they done for the Commonwealth, other than run and hide?”  
“They’re trying their best, from what I hear. They have such few numbers and resources, it’s hard for them to help anybody at all.”   
Pistol snorted. “You think they’d take in a deathclaw and a synth?”  
Tank shrugged. “I suppose that depends on how desperate they are.”   
“What about the Railroad?”  
“From what I hear they have even fewer resources. And if you’re upset with the Minutemen you won’t like them anyway. Their entire operation is based around running and hiding.”   
Pistol took a bite of his roasted radroach and chewed in thought. “I wonder what would come out of bringing those two factions together?”  
Tank ate his entire roast in one bite. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? I’m sure there’s a lot of synths that want justice just as much as you. I wonder how we would go about bringing them together?”  
“Only one way to find out, right? We could start with the Minutemen, I guess. The Railroad is pretty hard to find, and it’s probably near to impossible to convince them to come out of hiding.”  
“I think they have taken their operation up to a place in the northwest called ‘Sanctuary Hills.’ At least that’s what I overheard from a caravan guard. They mentioned something about their castle being infested with mirelurks.”  
Pistol shuddered at the thought of the Mirelurk Queen that almost melted him with her poison. “Yeah, well that’s a good excuse as any I guess. Well, I guess we have a heading now.” He stood, stretched, and spread his sleeping bag across two broken plane seats. Tank swept his big claws on the ground, covering the fire and extinguishing it.   
“We can head out at first light,” Tank said, settling down on a mound of dirt where the plane had buried itself in the earth.   
“Mm-hmm.” Pistol slipped into his sleeping bag and doused the lantern. He laid in the dark thinking about how they finally had a direction rather than wondering around aimlessly, and he could barely sleep.


End file.
